A Photographic History of Jennifer Lawrence's Brief Career

By Dustin Rowles | Lists | March 21, 2012 |

By Dustin Rowles | Lists | March 21, 2012 |

It wasn’t very long ago that Jennifer Lawrence made her first big splash with her Oscar-nominated role in the dark, brooding, and fantastic Winter’s Bone. She looked like this in the movie:

Sweet, plain, and pretty. Believe it or not, before Winter’s Bone, Lawrence had a regular role on Blue Collar Comedian Bill Engvall’s show on TBS.

Lawrence, however, moved backwards from most actresses. After Winter’s Bone, she was known as a serious actress. However, she wanted to be taken seriously for her body, too, which is why she posed for this Esquire spread.

It worked. Casting directors began to take her body more seriously. Thanks to that photo shoot, Lawrence next landed a role in X-Men: First Class.

That wasn’t quite enough to push her over the top and into blockbuster lead territory, however. She had two more movies come out that reminded people that she wasn’t yet a sex symbol: Like, Crazy and The Beaver.

Check out Like, Crazy. It’s achy and relatable, especially to anyone who has gone through an on-again-off-again long-distance relationship. Lawrence is not the star, however. Felicity Jones was.

Overshadowed by another actress, Jennifer Lawrence once again took the fashion magazines.

Doing so, of course, allowed Lawrence to demonstrate that she had something that the other three leading contenders — Hailee Steinfeld, Chloe Moretz and Abigail Breslin— vying for the role of a 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games did not: Cleavage.

She landed the role, and this month, she graces the cover of every other magazine in the country.

Here she is at the Red Carpet premiere of The Hunger Games, which some are predicting may fetch $140 milllion in its opening weekend.